Jamie Samuelsen, co-host of the “Jamie and Wojo” show at 6 p.m. weekdays on WXYT-FM (97.1), blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. You can reach him at jamsam22@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter @jamiesamuelsen and read more of his opinions at freep.com/jamie.

What are you looking for the rest of the Lions season?

Lions fans are angry. And they have a right to be angry.

It’s not just that the team has taken a mighty step backwards from last year’s 10-6 playoff run. It’s the nature of all of these losses. Seven of the eight Lions losses have been by one possession or less. It’s an agonizing fact that fools you into thinking that the Lions are only a play or two (or seven) from having a winning record.

Rest assured, they’re not. When you’re a play or two away in one or two games, that’s one thing. But when you’re a play or two away in seven games, that’s a trend that has to be reversed. And suddenly the Lions seem incapable of reversing things.

I’m sure some fans would prefer that the Lions lose their final four games and bottom out at 4-12. It would improve their draft standing and would leave no delusions as to just how far this team needs to go. If the Lions were to match their 2010 finish with a 4-0 run down the stretch, they’d be 8-8 and they may just think that the ship is righted and nothing needs to be dramatically changed in the off-season.

It would also reintroduce a winning culture to the locker room, one that clearly carried over from the end of 2010 into the 5-0 start of 2011.

Ah, the magic 5-0 start. It’s the great mirage that got us where we are today. The more I think about that five-game stretch, the more I wonder if it may have been one of the worst things that happened to this team. Sure it spurred the Lions into the playoffs and helped land them on four prime time games this season. It ended more than a decade of non-playoff football and gave fans reason to look ahead and hope. And it also led us to believe in this team and believe that they were capable of more.

Now, it seems like they’re not. Since starting 5-0, the Lions are 9-15, including the playoff loss to the Saints. That doesn’t undo their 10-6 season, but the 24 games that they’ve played since the 5-0 start sure seems to be a better snapshot of where this team is. They’ve beaten one team with a winning record (Seattle). And they’ve beaten two playoff teams (Denver last season and Seattle this year).

This certainly doesn’t bury the team. They still have great assets in the incomparable Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford and Ndamukong Suh. But they also seem far more bereft of talent than they seemed three months ago. And the question looms – who is to blame?

Coach Jim Schwartz is getting plenty of heat and much of it is justified. The team still lacks the discipline to make the correct play and not make the dumb play. Schwartz’s emotion cost the team dearly in the Thanksgiving loss to the Texans. And his emotion clearly spills over to the roster on game day.

Schwartz signed an extension during the summer, so he seems certain to return for 2013. But the heat has already been turned up significantly. Many national writers are wondering aloud why Schwartz has failed with a “talent-laden” roster. My question would be – just how much talent is there on this roster?

True, the Lions have stars. But their roster is very top-heavy. They have nice players like Stephen Tulloch, Chris Houston, Louis Delmas (when healthy) and Brandon Pettigrew. But beyond the big three (Johnson, Stafford, Suh) and the emerging Nick Fairley, how many true difference-makers are there on this roster? Not many.

And so if we’re applying heat, I’d argue that more should be applied to the architect of this team, GM Martin Mayhew.

Mayhew got off to a great start with the trade of Roy Williams and the initial draft class that produced Stafford, Pettigrew, Delmas, DeAndre Levy and Sammie Hill. But since then, things have dried up considerably. If you take away Stafford and Suh, who were no-brainer draft picks which came to the Lions as a result of the Matt Millen years, who is the best player that Mayhew has acquired in his four years on the job?

Fairley looks like the leader right now, and even he dropped right into Mayhew’s lap with the 13th pick in 2011 and got off to a very slow start. Tulloch is a solid player, but not a star. Delmas has shown flashes, but is never able to stay healthy. And injuries and issues have kept players like Jahvid Best, Mikel Leshoure and Titus Young from making any kind of significant contribution to the team so far. We’ll probably never see Young play another game for the Lions. And you’d have to fear the same is true for Best.

Mayhew’s “best player available” approach has come under fire as this season spiraled downward. Instead of drafting an impact player in the first or second round, he took Riley Reiff and Ryan Broyles. Both have made exactly one start each and only because players ahead of them fell prey to injury. And seeing as the free-agent period was used to extend Johnson’s deal and bring back Tulloch, the Lions did little to improve the product from 2011. Perhaps they were fooled by the 5-0 start as well.

When fans are angry, they want heads to roll. And Schwartz and Mayhew are at the top of most lists right now. Both are safe, for now. They took over an 0-16 operation and guided it back to respectability. They’ve earned the chance to take the next step. But this season has undone a lot of the good will built up in 2011. And if next season is anything like this season, it will likely be the last – for both of them.